The Daughters of Mrs Peacock

by Gerald Bullet

  ‘Well, Catherine?’ said Mrs Peacock. ‘Aren’t you going to open your nice parcel?’

  She answered with specious calm: ‘It can wait. After breakfast will do. It’s only a book I’m borrowing … From Mr Crabbe.’

  ‘Fancy that! I’m sure it’s very kind of him.’

  ‘Yes, isn’t it? Are you going to let us go to Ellen’s, Mama, me and Sarah? If not,’ said Catherine belligerently, ‘I shall have to think of an excuse.’

  No more was said of Mr Crabbe. The anti-climax left her feeling curiously flat. And even his letter, kind but brief, which she read in the seclusion of her bedroom half an hour later, failed at first to reinvigorate her. The book he sent was a new copy, and he had written her name in it. What more had she expected? Not so much. Yet she was unreasonably disappointed; and only gradually, as the day grew older, did her spirits rise and her dream resume its dominion.

  The Skimmers, lamentably, were in trade, and retail trade at that. Was this why Mrs Peacock had hesitated so long over Ellen’s invitation? If so, she never admitted it, so must be given the benefit of the doubt. Snobbery, to do her justice, played as a rule little conscious part in her mind: in a social order where class distinctions were taken for granted, and everyone ‘knew his place’, it was (or could be) an innocent and unaggressive folly; and she thought too well of her own situation to be either timid with her social superiors or overbearing with humbler folk. Though excessively confident in the rightness of her own judgments, and an incorrigible manager of her daughters, she was by no means entirely lacking in common sense: it was perhaps because events so often proved her to be right that she found it difficult to imagine she could ever be wrong. If she did in fact question whether the Skimmers were a suitable family for her daughters to be intimate with, it was no doubt the shop that gave her pause: the shop, and the recollection of having seen a little old man in shirtsleeves sitting in a corner of the shop-window, his back to the light, bending over his work of watch-mending. But to offset his being a shopkeeper, and somewhat rustic in his speech, was his craftsmanship, for which she had an instinctive respect. Much of what he offered for sale, which included jewelry as well as chronometers, was the work of his own hands, as she knew. His daughter Ellen, moreover, she knew to be a presentable ladylike young person. The unknown factor was his wife, who might, alas, be anything. But even so, she may have argued, the risk was small, and for the girls’ sake, Catherine’s especially, it had best be taken. Catherine was restive, difficult: it would perhaps do her good to be away from home for a little.

  Mr Skimmer, with his alert brown eyes, oval face, and neat exiguous figure, suggested to Sarah’s fancy a dormouse. His bald dome was fringed with silky grey hair; and his cheeks, clean-shaven, were smooth and sleek as a child’s. When, at their entry, he left his bench and stood behind the counter with his head cocked on one side and his little hairy paws confidently clasping each other across his stomach, Catherine and Sarah were delighted with him. They had arrived earlier than was expected, leaving their luggage at the station to be fetched.

  He stood awaiting their pleasure. ‘Good afternoon!’

  ‘Don’t you know us?’ said Catherine. ‘We know you, Mr Skimmer. We’re the Peacocks.’

  ‘Mercy me, so you are! What a privilege! What a pleasure! But did no one meet you at the station, young ladies? What can Ellen be dreaming of? Dear me. Dear me.’

  ‘It’s our own fault,’ Sarah explained. ‘We caught an early train. We couldn’t wait, you see.’

  ‘Well, well, well,’ said Mr Skimmer. ‘Tis a sad welcome, to be sure; but we must try to make amends. You’ll have tried the house-door, I fancy, and got no answer?’

  ‘No. Should we have done? We wanted to see you first,’ said Catherine guilefully. ‘It’s nice in here.’ The dark little shop, filled with the small busy voices of time, was like something in a fairytale. She stood with half-closed eyes, listening entranced to the ticking of many clocks, like the sussuration of a thousand grasshoppers. ‘What were you doing when we came in, Mr Skimmer? Mending a watch? I think it’s so clever. Will you teach me how to?’ she said irrepressibly, careless of Sarah’s ironic glance.

  ‘Not mending, cleaning,’ said Mr Skimmer. ‘He’s got the moth in him, like so many.’

  ‘The moth, did you say?’

  ‘Yes indeed,’ said Mr Skimmer gravely, making big eyes. ‘And a pair of nesting moorhens. Handsome birds they are. Tis a pity to disturb them.’

  His air of seriousness was so convincing that Catherine dared not laugh: she felt more than ever that she was living in a fairytale. But Sarah, with a gravity equal to his own, said:

  ‘Is that all, Mr Skimmer? No lions or tigers?’

  ‘Dear me, no, young madam. Not in an English lever.’ He seemed slightly shocked. ‘But we mustn’t keep you standing, all weary and worn with your travel. I’ll just step out with you, shall I, and show you the way in? We live upstairs, don’t you see, over the shop.’

  They lived not only over the shop but behind it. Kitchen and parlour, where Mrs Skimmer, with one servant to help her, spent much of her time, were on the ground floor; above, in the second and third storeys, were seven other rooms, four of them bedrooms. With two extras to accommodate it was a tight fit, but cosy, like living in a dolls’ house. The room that Catherine and Sarah shared was a bedroom only in emergencies. Its floor was covered with a worn red carpet; two of the beflowered walls, from floor to ceiling, were lined with books; the two narrow beds occupied so large a proportion of the space that the girls had to take it in turns to dress and undress; the white-enamelled washstand in the corner, under a framed engraving of the Parthenon, looked sadly out of place. Two days after their arrival they realized, with some dismay, that this was Mr Skimmer’s private sanctum, to which he retired when he wanted to be alone with his books.

  ‘Ought we to have come, Kitty? They can’t have much money, poor things.’

  ‘I know. But they don’t seem to mind, so why should we? I like Mr Skimmer, don’t you? But he does say the most extraordinary things. Do you think he knows how funny he is? Or is he a little bit … you know, queer? Fancy having all these books! You’d never guess it to look at him.’

  ‘I wonder if he’s acquainted with Mr Crabbe,’ said Sarah.

  Catherine was instantly on the alert. ‘Why?’

  ‘Oh, I just wondered. Mr Crabbe’s a great reader too, isn’t he? Has he lent you any more books?’

  ‘Not yet.’ Catherine was silent for a moment, then said in a casually reflective tone: ‘I might perhaps go and see him while we’re here.’

  ‘So you might,’ agreed Sarah placidly. ‘Shall I come too?’

  ‘Of course, if you like.’

  Sarah smiled. ‘Somehow I don’t think I will. I’ll stay behind and keep dear Ellen company.’

  ‘I think literature’s tremendously important, don’t you? I mean, one ought to read books. Good books, I mean, not novels.’

  ‘I’m sure it’s an excellent plan, Kitty. Let’s hope it succeeds.’

  ‘Succeeds?’

  ‘That’s what I said.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Don’t you? I thought perhaps you would.’

  Catherine let that go. She was sorely tempted to confide in Sarah. It was not secretiveness but shyness that held her back, and an instinctive unreasoned fear that by trying to articulate the dream that possessed her she would expose it not only to Sarah’s critical scrutiny but to her own as well, and so destroy it. Besides, what was there to tell? That she intended to rescue Robert Crabbe from Mrs Stapleton’s clutches? But how?—and why? Put into words and spoken aloud, it would sound too absurdly presumptuous. She shied away from the subject.

  ‘He’s really very sensible and nice. He’s teaching himself Greek, did you know?’

  ‘Who? Robert Crabbe?’

  ‘No, donkey. Mr Skimmer. He showed me his copy of the Iliad yesterday, proud as a little boy. I said how clever of him to be able
to read it. Read it? he said. Not a word. It’s all Greek to me, I haven’t mastered the alphabet yet, but what a beautiful page!’ quoted Catherine, imitating his warm gentle voice. Then, having created a diversion, she could not refrain from running back into danger by saying with a touch of complacency: ‘Robert, of course, knows Greek. Like Papa.’

  ‘You haven’t forgotten, by the way,’ said Sarah, ‘that if you do pay Robert a call, Papa will be there too?’

  ‘Yes. How nice. But not in the evening he won’t.’

  Mrs Skimmer, though not tall, was two inches taller than her husband, a rather silent but amiable woman; and the bouncing ebullient Ellen, their one ewe lamb, daughter of their middle age, over-topped them both, making them look like a pair of gnomes. They had never ceased to wonder at the belated miracle of her birth, had stinted themselves of many comforts in order to give her an expensive schooling, with the daughters of gentlemen, and humbly rejoiced in what they conceived to be her surpassing cleverness. She could sing; she could play the piano; she was studying to become a fully-fledged teacher in an infants’ school, where already she did duty five mornings a week as a wiper of small noses and a sponger of bruised knees; and it was much to the credit of her good nature and common sense that though cheerfully basking in her parents’ admiration she was not unduly puffed up by it. The Peacocks found her pleasant if not very interesting company. It was agreeable to chatter about old times, to exchange reminiscences of their long-departed schooldays and vie with each other in lifelike impersonations of this or that mistress; and Ellen’s noisy enthusiasm—she had changed scarcely at all in two years—made the sisters feel very mature, tolerant, and wise.

  The visit, in fine, gave every promise of being worth while for its own sake. All that remained to be discovered, for Catherine, was whether its ulterior motive would be justified in the event. That, she decided, should be put to the proof on Monday evening. Meanwhile there was Sunday to be got through. The Skimmers were chapel-folk, and the two girls, always ready for new experience, elected to accompany them to their place of worship. Its exterior was plain and forbidding, suggesting a penitentiary; but inside, though the interior too was bare and unadorned, was an atmosphere of warmth and enthusiasm very different from the stained-glass solemnity to which the Peacocks were accustomed. Never before had they heard such hearty hymn-singing, such impassioned reading of the Lessons, or listened to a man so familiarly addressing the Almighty in prayer. ‘As though,’ said Sarah afterwards, ‘he were a kind of caretaker, who needed to be reminded of his duties.’ The minister, with a wealth of dramatic gesture, preached a rousing hell-fire sermon which seemed to give everyone the greatest possible satisfaction, except Mr Skimmer, who at lunchtime, carvers in hand, apologized for it, remarking that though of course he didn’t disbelieve in hell he was quite sure no one would be sent there.

  ‘So unkind,’ he said. ‘And besides, what good would it do? He’s got more sense than that: it stands to reason.’

  ‘That’s not for the likes of us to say, Father,’ said Mrs Skimmer, with an anxious look at the young ladies. ‘And what about your old Dante?’ she demanded.

  ‘That’s different,’ said Mr Skimmer. ‘That’s literature.’

  It soon became evident that he was no Sabbatarian, for in the afternoon he produced for the entertainment of his guests a ‘magic lantern’, an ingenious novelty which filled the darkened room (its window heavily shrouded) with a warm oily smell and projected a series of coloured pictures, of a distinctly secular and even comic character, on a white sheet hung on the wall. This marvel provoked much laughter and admiring astonishment. Particularly diverting was the sequence that showed a man escaping the attentions of a lioness by fastening a barrel to her tail, and finding her, on a subsequent visit to the scene, surrounded by numerous cubs, all similarly furnished. The Skimmers enjoyed simple jokes, and this one lasted into teatime and beyond. And then, after evening chapel, a number of their cronies came in, to sit round the room and read aloud with them, turn by turn, from Mr Skimmer’s book of the moment. Catherine, though she thought the book both difficult and ‘funny’, enjoyed them all very much, especially Mr Skimmer himself.

  Next day she and Sarah, while Ellen was at work in her school, spent the morning sauntering about the town, savouring the unaccustomed pleasure of being surrounded by shops. They were delighted with their freedom, interested in everything they saw, and tempted again and again by something seen in a window. They bought a few trifles—ribbons, embroidery silks, a bottle of scent—pausing after each purchase, pleasurably guilty, to recount their money and discuss what presents they should take back for Julia and the parents. Strangely, because of an obstinate unexplained notion of Catherine’s, they paid no call on Papa.

  ‘Why not, Kitty?’

  ‘I don’t want to. I’m going there this evening.’

  ‘That’s no reason.’

  But it was reason enough for Catherine, and Sarah did not persist.

  ‘Look, Sarah. Ellen will think it funny, my going out by myself. I shall say I want to leave a message at the office for Papa.’

  ‘Why didn’t you go during the daytime, when your father was there? That’s what Ellen will ask.’

  ‘Because I forgot,’ said Catherine.

  ‘From Skimmer’s in North Street to Messrs Peacock and Crabbe’s premises in the more stately and dignified East Street was a fifteen-minutes walk, and a pleasant one on a fine August evening. Business was over for the day, the scavengers had done their work, the shop-fronts gleamed in the late sunlight, and the sound of her shoes on the pavement was loud in Catherine’s ears. Very conscious of her daring she glanced nervously about her in a kind of stage-fright, resisting with some difficulty the temptation to proceed stealthily, on tiptoe; for now that the moment of meeting was so near she felt a little sick, being equally divided between eagerness and dread. The town, to her senses, was unnaturally quiet: yet vigilant, as though eyes were watching her from upper windows: quiet and empty, but for a diminutive street-arab armed with shovel and pan and scanning the scene for treasure, last-lingering member of his tribe that all day long had been darting in and out of the traffic like mayflies, at imminent risk of their lives, collecting the horse-manure as it fell. She stopped to watch him for a moment, glad of a pretext for delay.

  Mr Skimmer, as we have seen, lived over a shop. Mr Crabbe, a professional man, lived over his office: which, of course, is quite a different thing. The two were in some sense neighbours, and had, if they but knew it, interests in common; but Catherine was uneasily aware that though they had undoubtedly seen each other many times they had never ‘met’, moving as they did in different spheres.

  Her first ringing of the bell brought no response. Having never in all her previsions of this moment allowed for the possibility of Robert’s being not at home, she was at first ingenuously astonished, then indignant, and finally reduced to despair. On the way here she had half-hoped for an excuse to abandon her project, but now, confronted by the shut door, she felt angry and desolate. So this was the end! Never, never, would she come again! Having thus resolved she pulled again at the bell, and presently, straining her ears, she heard the bump-bump of someone descending the stairs.

  ‘Good evening, Mr Crabbe.’

  ‘Why, hullo, Catherine!’ His surprise was manifest. She searched in vain for a sign of pleasure. ‘Is anything wrong?’

  ‘Wrong? No. Why should it be? Being so near, I thought I’d come and see you, that’s all. I wanted … I wanted …’ What did she want? ‘I wanted to thank you again for that book.’

  ‘Not at all. Very glad you liked it.’ He stood anxiously regarding her, obviously at a loss. ‘Forgive me, Catherine, I’m afraid I can’t ask you to come in. I’m alone, you see.’

  Blood burned in her cheeks. She felt like a child rebuked. But I’m not a child, she thought angrily. I won’t put up with it. Instinct told her that only boldness could serve her now.

  ‘Pray don’t apologize, Rober
t,’ she said coldly, but using his name for the first time. ‘Are you afraid for your reputation?’

  ‘No, my dear. For yours. We have to think, you know, of what people would say. Your father, for example.’

  ‘I’m not a child,’ she retorted angrily.

  ‘No, Catherine. That’s precisely the point.’

  The intentness of his look, eloquent of more than admiration, appeased her; but she would not let him know it.

  ‘I see that it was foolish of me to come. And improper too. Thank you for telling me. Good night.’ She turned away.

  ‘Please don’t go!’

  ‘Perhaps I ought to have explained,’ said Catherine over her shoulder, ‘that Sarah and I are staying with the Skimmers, in North Street. But I imagined Papa would have mentioned it.’

  ‘He did mention it,’ Robert earnestly assured her.

  ‘But evidently you weren’t interested. And why indeed should you be?’

  Coming nearer he put a restraining hand on her arm.

  ‘If we’re to quarrel, Kitty, let’s do it in comfort. We might walk a little way, don’t you think? Will you wait while I get my hat?’

  She raised her eyes to his, silently assenting. He had never called her Kitty before.

  At the junction of the four main roads of Newtonbury stood the Market Cross, a noble octagonal structure stained and mellowed by five centuries of time. Except for the church, All Saints, it was the most ancient building in a town predominantly Regency in style; and the paved open court at the base, with its stone seats round a central pillar, provided the perfect venue for an ingenuous young lady and a gentlemen bent on correct behaviour. Here, in this public place, they could sit and talk freely, and even intimately, while advertising their innocence to any passers-by who might chance to see them.